{"id":40905,"date":"2025-02-27T18:50:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T02:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40905"},"modified":"2025-02-27T18:50:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T02:50:17","slug":"the-gift-of-disappointing-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-gift-of-disappointing-well\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Disappointing Well"},"content":{"rendered":"

My favorite definition of \u201cleadership\u201d these days is one from Ronald Heifetz: \u201cdisappointing people at a rate they can absorb<\/strong>.\u201d[1]<\/a> This definition came to mind throughout my reading of A Failure of Nerve<\/em>, especially as Friedman interacted with the concepts of sabotage, systemic toxicity, and how people and organizations can strongly (negatively!) react simply because a leader takes any action.[2]<\/a> Friedman\u2019s text was at once encouraging, challenging, and disappointing.<\/p>\n

My disappointments were three-fold: First, because our culture seems to be moving even more rapidly in the swift-moving current of anxiety and unreasonableness, of self-advancement, enmeshment, and reactivity; nearly three decades after the book\u2019s first release, Friedman\u2019s voice is still like one calling in the wilderness. Second, how I\u2019ve never been exposed to (or can recall being exposed to) Friedman and his systems perspective even while completing a master\u2019s degree in organizational leadership is beyond me; his work is prescient, practical, and incredibly relevant in our anxious world, and I wish I had been invited into its conversations much earlier. Finally, while Friedman recognizes the whole person and the sense of the spiritual, I don\u2019t know how a leader can self-differentiate in a healthy way without Holy Spirit at work in community with others; in this way, the political, familial, and biological frameworks he uses are helpful but incomplete.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned, the work was challenging and encouraging, too (I\u2019m more encouraged and challenged than disappointed, so Friedman is leading me well, at least according to Heifetz). I\u2019m currently navigating all that comes with being 18 months into transition following a 41-year senior leader. In this space, I have daily opportunities to disappoint people; I\u2019m hopeful those disappointments are absorbable, but time will tell. I also hope those disappointments are out of healthy, well-differentiated (and Spirit-dependent) leadership. However, Friedman would remind us that we never fully arrive at self-differentiation, and no doubt those I serve would be able to point out where growth in me would be appreciated.[3]<\/a> The encouragement here is that the disappointment and frustration found in the systemic responses to change\u2014what Friedman calls \u201csabotage\u201d\u2014are to be expected; this is what happens when leadership enters the ecosystem.[4]<\/a> In that way, the disappointments of others or even the turbulence found in seasons like mine are part of the gift and sacred calling of leadership.<\/p>\n

Another challenge is the propensity for identifying an \u201cenemy\u201d somewhere to hang our dysfunction on. In the disequilibrating season of transition, it\u2019s easy to point to tertiary reasons for difficulties and focus there, making people or circumstances a shared enemy. It\u2019s convenient to find something easy to blame rather than enduring the \u201cacute, temporarily more painful phase\u201d of journeying out of chronic conditions.[5]<\/a> I have seen this playing out in my context, and I\u2019m grateful to have categories and context for what is happening. I think if we were to gaze into the underworkings of these things with a spiritual perspective, we would be reminded of the reality of principalities and powers that leverage human systems for dysfunction and destruction.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

I am encouraged by the reminder that working harder isn\u2019t nearly as crucial as offering healthy presence and that bringing energy<\/em> rather than information<\/em> has great value.[7]<\/a> It\u2019s also personally challenging as someone who presents as an enneagram five (\u201cfives\u201d are notorious for rationing energy and collecting information). [8]<\/a>As much as I can see an organization needing transformation, this further reveals the need for my personal engagement as one being transformed to bring a fullness of presence and energy even (or especially!) when it seems dangerous and taxing.<\/p>\n

Throughout A Failure of Nerve, <\/em>there is hope in finding healing where things are broken, though we must recognize that the wounds received and brokenness in community don\u2019t get healed in isolation.[9]<\/a> Here I am once again reminded of our need for the transforming work of Holy Spirit as we journey in community with others and that leaders can\u2019t take others where they aren\u2019t themselves willing to go. I believe it\u2019s as Holy Spirit transforms us into the likeness of Jesus\u2014who personifies great leadership and avoids the pitfalls of \u201cquick-fix\u201d leadership\u2014that we can live into the vision of well-differentiated leadership that Friedman has, not just emerging to be worn down and worn out, but thriving in a world increasingly desperate for humble, authentic, courageous leadership.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Heifetz, Ronald and Marty Linskey. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change<\/em>. (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2017), 128.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Friedman, Edwin H. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix,<\/em> 10th<\/sup> Anniversary Revised Edition, Kindle. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Friedman, 326.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Friedman, 19, 30.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Friedman, 96.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Cf. John 8:44; John 10:10; 2 Corinthians 4:1-4; Ephesians 6:10-18.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Friedman, 177.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Rohr, Richard and Andreas Ebert. The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective<\/em>. Redwood City: PublishDrive, 2001.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Friedman, 26.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Friedman, 261.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite definition of \u201cleadership\u201d these days is one from Ronald Heifetz: \u201cdisappointing people at a rate they can absorb.\u201d[1] This definition came to mind throughout my reading of A Failure of Nerve, especially as Friedman interacted with the concepts of sabotage, systemic toxicity, and how people and organizations can strongly (negatively!) react simply because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3397,236],"class_list":["post-40905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp04","tag-friedman","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40906,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40905\/revisions\/40906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}